Despite ruling, Sheriff Arpaio vows to enforce controversial law

SB 1070, Arizona’s controversial, anti-immigration law, went into effect this morning but without its key provision: the ability of police to question people they think are in the country illegally, a provision opponents view as racial profiling. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled it intrudes into federal law.

While opponents of SB 1070 may feel victorious, it may be only momentary. Arizona is appealing the federal court’s decision, which is likely to reach the Supreme Court.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is vowing to continue enforcing the law as he sees fit. Since 2007, his department has deported a fourth of all undocumented immigrants in the United States. That’s without a new law.

Judge Bolton responded to one lawsuit only. The one filed by the Justice Department. But there are seven lawsuits challenging Arizona.

Meanwhile,

• U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., has called off an economic boycott against his state;

• Civil rights activists and social justice groups are gearing up for vigils, marches and other events in support of federal intervention in SB 1070;

3 Responses

Why do you call this controversal? Its not! We want illegals out of this country. What is it you don’t understand? We want our borders secured. If mexico is so worried about mexican rights, why don’t they make mexico a better place to live.

“Statistics obtained by The Associated Press show that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was responsible for the deportations or forced departure of 26,146 immigrants since 2007.

“That’s about a quarter of the national total of 115,841 sent out of the U.S. by officers in 64 law enforcement agencies deputized to help enforce immigration laws, some since 2006, under the so-called 287(g) program.”

Maricopa County did not deport one-fourth of all illegal immigrants in the United States; if that was the case, they would have deported 2-3 million people. Nor did they deport one-fourth of all illegal immigrants who have been deported from the United States (which is what I think you probably intended to say); this too would have been a much larger number, given that the US deported 387,790 during fiscal year 2009 alone ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/little-girl-who-challenge_n_583432.html).

What the AP article says is that since 2007, Maricopa County has been involved in about one-fourth of the deportations of all illegal immigrants who were deported under the 287(g) program – which would be roughly 3% of total US deportations. That’s a pretty significant number for one county, but still just a small fraction of the 400,000 illegal immigrants estimated to be in Arizona alone (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100729/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_immigration) or the 10-11 million in the US.